


In Each of Us

by spam_chan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anniversary, Cemetery, Character Death, Crying, F/M, Friendship, Good Parent Narcissa Black Malfoy, Grief/Mourning, Implied Crookshanks Death, Letters, Loss, Photographs, Rain, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28928532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spam_chan/pseuds/spam_chan
Summary: She bleeds through every facet of his life, colors every moment, invades every sense. Even when she’s gone.--Every year after Hermione's death Draco mourns a little differently.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 15
Kudos: 53





	In Each of Us

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting after heavy editing because that's just what my brain wanted to do.

_Year One_

His clothes are stained with bleach, colors dulled by an inability to sort by type—light, dark, delicate. It’s all the same to him, having never paid attention to her when she described, in detail and without prompting, which loads were populated how and why. What was once a meticulous and polished visage has wrinkled and faded, marked instead by coffee dribbles and wrinkles, faded colors and stains. 

He could wash the clothes in a different way—pay someone to do it, use magic. But she’d always insisted that the clothes felt cleaner when she washed them with her own detergent, that they were more comfortable when she added softener. And he knows what brands to buy, having seen them come in through the front door and out through the rubbish for years on end. He knows which brands he can use to make them smell like her. 

There are moments that color every after, moments that hang around you like smoke in curtains. Seasoning that sticks to your tongue. Salt that puckers your lips. Experiences that you can recall long after you live them: seeing the ocean for the first time, standing where you can feel the spray flying off the rocks; your feet leave the ground when you first ride a broom, weight dropping through to your stomach while the air stings your cheeks; diving into a cold lake on a hot day, chest shrinking in do tighten around your lungs until you’re pins and needles, tingling for air. 

Draco had always known that these moments would happen, and he’d always been sure they would be beautiful. The flapping of wings through gaps in his fingers as he caught his first snitch. The moment he saw his wife across an aisle. The first time he held his child. Smaller things, too—new firsts, for him and for them, minutia that summed to a life of little infinities.

It never occurred to him that these moments could be painful. 

A late start. A cup of tea. A quick kiss. Insignificant finalities marking his last moments with her. More than any sea or any sky, they stay with him. He gets a late start, has a cup of tea, kisses her picture. Dials her muggle telephone every night just to hear her voice telling him to leave a message. 

Washes his clothes so they smell like she’s still here.

She bleeds through every facet of his life, colors every moment, invades every sense. Even when she’s gone. 

He’s never visited her grave before today, stopping blocks away with shortened breath, heart bruising his ribs. But anniversaries were always important to them—first civil conversation, first dinner, first kiss, first date, first fight, first _I love you_. Anything to mark their growth. And he’d had so many more firsts planned for them. 

He can’t miss the first anniversary of her death.

It’s warm rain today but he can’t stop shivering. The grass slips under his shoes, which clash horribly with his pilled, graying suit. He hobbles more than walks through a sea of stones to reach her, hands stuck to his sides, muscles rigid and unforgiving. The Ministry had tried to give her a monument, some ostentatious statue or obelisk commemorating a life lived for others. Instead he had found a stone that looked like the sea itself had taken time to wash out every imperfection, rounded at the edges, smooth to the touch. The color of the pages of an ancient book. And while the sea may have taken its time with the stone, the words it held were mulled over for just as long, contributions many, compromises few. Eventually they’d settled on two things: her name, of course, and a phrase: _a thousand lifetimes lived, in each of us._

Heavy shoes stop just beside the stone as he stares, rain trickling through eyebrows, eyelashes. He blinks once, twice, a hundred times, knowing that the water will not clear.

“It’s really coming down, isn’t it, Granger?”

There are noises all around, raindrops slapping stone, cars passing on the street, frogs chirping in distant grass, but it’s silent with the absence of her voice. And he wants to say so many things, wants to tell her about how hard it is to find the sun each morning and how the mattress grows uneven with every day she’s gone and how he killed one of her plants and how he thinks the quiet might kill _him_ —

But, somehow, it’s not enough. He wobbles, unsteady on solid feet, and lets his knees hit the grass, shoes digging into his backside, water soaking through leaden wool. There’s enough water now to rid the world of drought, and with scratching throat and stinging eyes he can feel himself adding a few drops more.

“I fear it’s going to rain for quite some time.”

_Year two_

His office is tucked away in the corner on the second level of the Ministry, once a slight and now a kindness, preserving him from visitors and foot traffic and noise. He’s looked into other offices on his way in every morning, seen the pictures of friends and family, the hideous drawings hopefully made by children, the artwork, the plants. Stacks of unfinished paperwork pile up in different configurations, notes stuck to desks or scribbled across schedules, rubbish bins filled with disposable tea cups or the remnants of lunch. 

His own space is sparse, touches minimal and personal. He keeps a single picture in his desk drawer, just for him. A hanging plant sits above the window that looks over the street—he waters it every Tuesday morning, first thing, siphoning the runoff with his wand and cleaning the leaves with a handkerchief. As his own paperwork never sits long enough to collect, a china cup is the only thing sitting on his desk. Having come free with the adoption of their cat, the cup’s taste and quality are more than questionable—the thing is bright red, covered in little black paw prints, with the phrase _CATatonic before caffeine_ across the front in blinding yellow print. 

He’s glad he never threw it out. 

It’s remarkable how much work he can get done without the threat or temptation of conversation, how many minutes idle by while his coworkers meander the floor in search of gossip or companionship. Time passes the same for each of them, and yet somehow his minutes are emptier, longer, and monotone. 

The difference, he supposes, is that he never stops.

He keeps his eyes trained stubbornly to the left, away from the small bouquet at the far right edge of his desk. The streets were still dark when he’d left home to wander them, looking for a shop that might carry the right sort of flowers for today. Ones that apologized for a year of absence, that conveyed an equally long year of devotion. 

He’s almost managed to tune them out when he hears a knock, followed immediately by the rattling of a doorknob. The hinges on his door squeak from lack of use, a sound almost as jarring as the presence of another human. 

Particularly this human.

Harry Potter does not visit Draco Malfoy at work. Their relationship, defined by rivalry, hatred, and distaste, in that order, was punctuated by the request that Potter carve out Granter’s epitaph. It was an olive branch never meant to be returned, one handed out of respect for her more than for him. 

The first thing Potter’s eyes hit are the flowers. Draco watches them squint, then widen, lingering so long it seems as if they might have been the sole purpose of his intrusion.

“Potter?”

His neck snaps up so quickly Draco wonders if he’s forgotten where he is, or if he’s wandered through the wrong door. But those green eyes widen again, this time in recognition. 

He licks his lips twice, chewing on the flaking skin that catches on his tongue, before he speaks. 

“May I sit down?”

Draco rolls his eyes within a blink, grinding his molars together as if to steel himself against an unpleasant interaction.

“Yes.”

Potter flops into the chair opposite him on the other side of the desk, elbows braced on his knees, hands laced together. He’s staring at his palms, which are trembling so hard from the jittering of his legs that it’s a small wonder one of them hasn’t smacked his glasses off. 

The shaking spans several heartbeats before slowing, and Draco can imagine the man forcing his heels towards the floor, taking quiet inhales and examining small etchings in his skin to get back on his rails. 

“You know—“

He coughs to clear his throat, an effort meant to hide a shaking voice.

“—you know,” he starts again, “I used to fight with her all the time.”

He doesn’t have to specify who exactly ‘her’ means, as their social circles overlap at exactly one point. 

“I once stopped talking to her over a bloody broomstick. She wanted to make sure it was safe, and I just remember feeling so suffocated by her attentions that I decided we were better off with some time apart. It was always like that when we fought before the war, little disagreements that ended with us ignoring the issue until we reconciled naturally. She never strayed too far because I needed her, and I never said too much for the same reason.”

Potter was still staring at his hands, a slow smile cracking his chapped lips.

“Things were different after the war. It was like she took the kid gloves off once I had a life expectancy of over a few years, and she made it her personal goal to make up for lost time by quarreling with me over every little thing for the rest of our bloody lives. Seriously, half the time we spent together was just us bickering for sport over work things and which pubs served the best chips and why I wouldn’t give Kreacher her hideous knitted hats for Christmas. It was constant. But the worst fights—the ones where I could literally see her hands twitching to curse me—well, those ones were all over you.”

Draco remembers those fights, can still imagine a livid Hermione pacing the halls of their flat or chopping vegetables with increasingly aggressive knife strokes, muttering to herself and gesticulating wildly. He remembers, too, that once the knife was safely on the counter he would trail his fingertips up her arms, move her hair to one side to bury his face into her shoulder. He would wait until she relaxed before he held her, before he kissed her neck and that spot behind her ear and carried her off with the promise to make her forget all about it if she would only stop talking about Harry _fucking_ Potter—

He remembers every little thing, though he isn’t inclined to share. Those memories are his own, and he doesn’t have enough to go around. 

So Draco raises one eyebrow and tilts his head, hoping that Potter will take that in lieu of a response.

He does.

“She used to say that we lived parallel lives, you and me. That she could see so much good in both of us that it made her batty that we couldn’t see it in each other. I fought her at every single step of your relationship—when she first told me about you, when you moved in together, when you adopted a cat that’s somehow even worse than the first one.” Potter’s eyes drift to the mug, and he huffs out a pathetic imitation of a laugh. 

“And every time I made some snide comment or gritted my teeth at your presence she would cry these furious tears and scream her frustrations. Never about how annoying I was being, mind you. She was angry that I wouldn’t give you a chance.”

Potter sits back, shoulders tight, and looks at him with a nervous expression that’s close to pleading.

“To be honest I have no idea what she was on about with that parallel lives shit. I find you a bit egotistical and incredibly infuriating. But, honestly, people say the same about me half the time. I may not know enough about you to speak to our similarities, but… well, if you would let me, I think I’d like to learn. I actually have my own flowers back in my office, and if it’s alright,” he gnaws on those nearly-bleeding lips once more, the physical manifestation of nervous energy, “I’d really like to come with you today.”

Past versions of him would have laughed at this request, or brushed it off with some feigned preference for solitude. But talking to himself only has so many outcomes, and he still remembers the quiet of visiting alone.

“We’re getting you a bouquet along the way, I have no doubt your taste in flowers is terrible.”

_Year three_

They’re spread across a garish Gryffindor blanket, one he tolerates only because she’d find it hilarious. Ginny, who can neither be called Weasley nor Potter due to the torrent of confusion it would cause, sits beside him as she digs through an infinite little beaded bag in the silence she caused following her announcement of a self-proclaimed brilliant idea. 

“She gave that to you, then?”

He’s almost too quiet for anyone to hear, but Ginny stills in her search before turning towards him. 

“So that I could carry around all of Harry and Ron’s shit instead of her.” She gives a mischievous little grin that somehow turns down at the corners before refocusing on the bag, sticking her tongue out just a bit and scrunching her nose in concentration. The moments drag on for too long, impatience rising with every little curse she utters when something falls over or she grabs the wrong object. 

Just as Weasley’s frustration starts to color the base of his neck and Potter’s posture slumps to almost supine, Ginny’s arm stills before jerking out of the bag, clutching a thick envelope like it’s a snitch. 

“Aha! Got it! Alright, boys, here it is.”

She shimmies up onto her knees before plopping down to sit on her heels, tearing at the string around the seal and shaking the contents into her hand. 

“This is our first time here all together, so I thought it might be nice to show her some pictures of our year.” Ginny fans out a thick stack of pictures into two lines, taking care not to touch their surfaces with the pads of her fingers.

“We’ve got—yes, these ones are from our wedding,” she smiles at Potter, who has sprouted from the ground like a plant that’s been watered, hovering over the pictures and grinning at his wife, “and Teddy’s birthday party, and Draco’s first Weasley Christmas,” Ron snickers, and Draco lunges out to kick him in the side, “and a few others. I thought we could send them up to her—you know, in one of those little air balloons.”

There had been a small paper air balloon for each guest not in attendance at the Potters’ wedding, launched before the couple’s first dance. Draco had let go of Granger’s, had watched it rise until it joined the constellations. 

They pass the photographs around for hours, setting some aside and passing the rest. There’s a giggle, or a sniff, or a short conversation to perforate the silence every once in a while, but it’s mostly just the breeze rustling through blades of grass and the sound of flipping paper. 

Once the last photo has made its way around there are five piles—a stack each for Draco, Ginny, Potter and Weasley, and a stack for them to take back home. Ginny folds the leftover photos back into the envelope before placing it into the bag and rummaging once more for what they assume must be the paper air balloon. 

“Which ones did you pick?”

A giant ginger figure looms over Draco’s periphery as Weasley crowds in to eye his pile of photos. Swatting at Weasley’s middle with the back of his hand, Draco leans to cover the photos from his line of sight.

“You first, Weasel.”

The insult is met with a grin, having become somewhat of an inside joke after a year of fights and drunken crying and bonding over the itchiness of the patented Weasley sweaters. A stack of photos is handed to Draco as Weasley moves to look over his shoulder, revisiting the photos again. 

He’s chosen four, the only common theme a pasty blonde who looks only a little bit out of place. 

The first two are pictures from the wedding. In the first Draco dances with his mother, every once in a while pausing mid-step to glance at the sky. The two swing around in a little loop before the image resets. The second is a moment Draco blacked out, his first attempt at drinking tequila. A swarm of Weasleys—Ron, George and Charlie—hover around him, shaking their fists and slapping him on the back when he finally takes the shot. His face is something of complete horror, all screwed up with his tongue out at the fowl taste and fowler aftertaste. 

The third is from the birthday party. Potter slaps the bottom of Draco’s little paper plate and covers his face in cake while Teddy laughs and changes his hair from blonde to black, clapping as Draco tries not to swear in front of all the children. 

The final photo is of Draco and Weasley outside one of the holding cells in the basement of the Ministry, dried blood all over Draco’s nose and shirt and a swelling bruise over Weasley’s eye. 

“Is that…?”

“The night Harry locked us up for fighting? Yeah.”

“Why in the bloody fuck would you want to show that to Granger?”

He grins, the idiot, trying to wink but closing both eyes.

“I don’t know, can’t you imagine her making that exasperated face when she sees it? The one that makes her hair all big and,” Weasley gesticulates around his head in a wide arc, “poofy?”

Draco’s laugh starts out small, grows, and ends up loud and painful. He barely notices that the others have joined in until he stops, listening to Ginny and Potter gasp for air beside him. 

“It wasn’t that funny,” Weasley says, a bit of a pout leaking into his voice. 

“Yeah, but,” Potter shifts his glasses up to his forehead, dabbing at stray tears under his eyes, “it felt good to laugh.”

Before the silence can settle over them Ginny is climbing over Potter to show off her photos. Three from the wedding, two from the birthday, two from her bridal shower. 

“Aren’t you glad I taught you to sort clothes? You look much less terrible in all the wedding photos than you have for—well, ever, really.”

She nudges Draco’s side, and he shoves her gently back. 

“I actually am. Glad, that is. Though I contest the point that I’ve ever been anything but gorgeous, and I won’t be insulted by someone who married,” he waves one hand in Potter’s general direction, focusing a sneer on the head of cowlicks and the crooked glasses, “that”.

Ginny swats the back of his head but says nothing, choosing to refocus their attention on pictures of an adorable Teddy flying his first broom. 

Potter is next with only two photos, one of Ginny walking down the aisle and one of Teddy, Draco, Narcissa, and Andromeda, all asleep on a couch during Weasley Christmas. 

“A new family and a healed family.”

There’s one person missing from that sentiment, but before Draco can seek deeper into that line of thought or recall too fondly the feeling of hugging a stranger for the first time and knowing that they’re somehow also you, two red blurs lunge at Potter, one swatting him and the other shouting, “stop with that shite, Harry, we’re already close enough to crying without your fucking commentary.”

“Ow— _ow, fuck_ —fine, I chose them because my wife is hot and Draco looks ridiculous sleeping with his mouth open. Next?”

It’s a forced levity, the kind you fight down as it sticks in your throat, marked by teeth grinding through smiles and one too many swallows. Little buoys to keep from drowning. Potter and Weasley in the sorrow of her loss. Ginny in the weight of holding them up. Draco in the space each solitary moment seems to fill, the way those moments expand, the ringing he hears when there isn’t enough noise to fill them. Most days they let the waves push and pull, feeling her absence in a way that almost crushes or losing themselves in distractions that seem to filter toxins from the air, making each breath fuller, letting the air reach all the way to their toes. 

He and Potter lasted two minutes before they had to leave the year before, placing flowers and letting words die in their throats. It was normal, and natural, but afterwards they both admitted to wishing they’d been able to tell her something good, something beyond the grief, something that would have made her feel alive. So for one day a year, the worst day, they decided to focus on everything she would have loved, saving contemplation for after they’ve left her side. 

In practice it’s better and it’s worse. Draco can feel a pressure building with each photograph, full of misplaced guilt over happy memories without her and commentary on how remarkable it is that they finally listened to her after all these years. Beyond the pressure, though, is a lack of tightness in his chest, a stretching where there used to be constriction. He can share things with her, he knows that now. And the others can, too. 

To save Potter from further attacks he clears his throat and places his own photo on the grass, fingers stopping on each corner like he’s too possessive to let it go. It’s a posed photo, the only posed photo in anyone’s stack. A hoard of gingers stands behind the couch, with Draco and his mother, Teddy, Andromeda, Potter and Ginny squished together on the couch in front. Everyone is dressed in an awkwardly sized Weasley sweater, and the inhabitants are all scratching their necks or smacking each other off camera. 

“Thought she’d like to see us all together.”

She would have cried messy tears, rubbing her face until it was red and swollen. It’s one of those photos that looks awkward and forced to anyone who doesn’t already know its importance, glossy eyes toothy smiles too subtle to catch. 

Red hair tickles his hand as Ginny moves to look closer, tilting her head to look more closely at each face. 

“You’re sure you don’t want to keep this one? I didn’t make copies.”

He shakes his head, smiling to one side as he plucks at the grass beyond the edge of the blanket. 

“Nah, it’s alright. I’ve still got the bloody sweater.”

They stack the photos into the bucket of the balloon, working hard to maintain levity as Ginny lights the wick with her wand. Draco lets go when the heat becomes unbearable, and the balloon disappears under low cloud coverage before anyone is ready to see it go. Ginny takes the first firefly sighting as a sign that it’s time to leave, wiping her face with rough hands and stalking off to fold the blanket while Potter hovers behind, little flecks of water sprinkled on the insides of his glasses. 

Weasley stands with Draco, head still back, not registering the sounds of bickering Potters or the low hum of thunder in the distance. 

“Weasley?”

“Hmm.”

Draco got his attention before he was sure he wanted it, and has to force out the rest of the words after teetering on the brink of conversation and awkwardness.

“Why were your pictures all of me?”

Weasley’s head drifts to the side in one fluid motion, and he smirks a bit before answering. 

“Wanted her to see that we’ve all realized she was right.”

This was not the expected answer. It was not even a coherent answer. Draco thought the pictures, pictures of him doing silly, stupid things and crying with his mum, were meant to make her laugh, or smile, or see just how much of an idiot he was. 

“Right?”

“Yeah.” Weasley turns his head back up, cheeks burning up with some unrevealed embarrassment. “She was right about you.”

Draco can only hope no one can see his own blush as they leave the grave together. 

_Year four_

The long cherry dining table, once bare and meticulously cared for, not a drop of water on the surface or a scuff along the side, is littered with messy bunches of flowers. Loose petals spill out to land along the wood, dew soaking into hundred year old fibers, warping, marring, staining.

It’s terrifying and cathartic, watching the destruction of such an ancient and loaded object wreaked by tiny little petals. Museum, fortress, taboo—the Manor has been each in turn, none hospitable even to its owners until they abandoned pretense and allowed themselves to wear it in. 

The visage of perfection broke with a china cup. Months ago he’d shattered that hideous cat mug after washing it at home, bumped it with his elbow after being startled by the cat itself, and suddenly found himself sobbing, unable to breathe, barely managing to crawl to the fireplace and call for his mother before collapsing on the marble floor. Narcissa had been there to literally pick up the pieces, had searched the floors of his flat with bare fingers for each and every one before returning to his side to glue the cup back together the muggle way because he hadn't felt it was _enough_ to use magic. He had watched as she hunched over those little shards of porcelain, bleeding fingers stuck together by stray drops of glue, face screwed up in concentration as she lined up jagged edges.

He’d always loved her, of course, but the marble itself had never felt so warm. 

In time his visits home grew more frequent, their conversations echoing through nearly empty halls. She told him of the guilt she held over Tonks, how she battered herself over never meeting the woman before her death. In turn he told her about Granger’s grave, how he could only stomach it once a year, how he made note of moments she would have loved so he could tell her about them when he went. Narcissa had wanted to contribute this year, and she practiced etherial charms on flowers from the garden for months until she found just the right ones.

With only an hour before they meet at her gravestone Draco gathers up the bouquets, moving counter-clockwise around the table, spelling away stray blooms and leaves as he goes. They talk about the spells she chose, Draco marveling internally at her creativity through the gaps in conversation, listening to the rustling of leaves and the crinkle of parchment and—

The tapping of a cane, the heavy opening of double doors.

Lucius is just beyond them, cane hitting marble as he walks towards the dining table. They’d traded grudges in recent years, Draco’s choice of company unthinkable, Lucius’s ambivalence unforgivable. After an eternity that passes far too quickly Draco finds himself beside his father, close enough to notice a receding hairline and a slight hunch. He can feel Narcissa's paused breath, can hear her hands crinkling the paper wrapped around the roses in her hands. He would comfort her if he could manage it, would assure her that he wouldn't start a fight or leave in protest, but he can't tear his eyes away from the deep bruises under his father's eyes or the angry red patches marring his arms and neck. Marks that make him look like he lies awake at night scratching through his skin. 

With a little cough from a dry throat Lucius reminds Draco that it’s impolite to stare, instead drawing his attention to the small package being pressed into his chest. It’s wrapped in brown paper, tied in a lopsided bow that’s a bit too loose with a string not at all meant for wrapping presents. Before he can ask what it is, or get some semblance of the importance he’s been handed, Lucius holds up a hand, giving himself pause to speak.

“You once mentioned it was her favorite book. I happened to have a first edition. From what you have said, it seems a waste for anyone else to have it.”

He shows his teeth in something that’s almost a smile before retreating, cane supporting more weight than it ever did before. 

_Year five_

He asked to go alone this year. 

It’s dusk when he arrives at her grave. He finds it full of flowers, ones spelled to sparkle like gems or change colors in the wind. There’s a faint smell of bonfire from the lanterns, and he can see another book on top of the one placed there last year. The charms around her gravesite are the same as those in Godrick’s hollow, used by Potter after they started leaving her more permanent. 

The quiet is the same, hushed nature sounds that cannot fill the emptiness, but it’s less rattling now that he can hear the sounds of his own heart over the ringing in his ears. His feet are steadier, too, and he notices how naturally he moves as he takes a folded piece of parchment from the pocket of his coat. 

“Granger,” he unfolds the page, “it’s been a long five years. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t come along with the rest of your fan club this time. Well, I actually thought I’d try my luck at writing, and didn’t relish the idea of your little sidekicks listening with baited breath to my sappy, sappy words.”

He shakes out the wrinkles from the page, shifting his feet until they rest on sturdier ground, before he begins. 

“When Potter found that saying, _a thousand lifetimes lived, in each of us_ , I loved it immediately. I thought of it like a promise, that I would love you enough for a thousand lifetimes, no matter where you were, no matter what separated us. I vowed to spend my life proving it to you, mourning you the way you deserved to be mourned, remembering you with every breath you couldn’t take. 

“The first year was nothing but pain. I hardly said ten words the first time I came here. Losing you filtered out all the color from my world, and I couldn’t find the words to express how it felt to search and search and see nothing but grey. 

“It was all so clear to me, the way I was doomed to trudge on, filling every rainy moment with a determined nothingness. So clear that I never stopped to see the way it bent the light, to notice that what I thought was clear actually gave pockets of color if you looked through it just right.”

He pauses here, caught up in how the words actually sound when read out loud, lowering the paper a few inches to frown at her gravestone.

“Yes, Granger, I do know how cheesy it is to use extended metaphors in glorified love letters, and no I do not regret it one bit. I’m sure you’re giggling about this, wherever you are, but I assure you it will only get worse from here. Now, where was I?”

It’s several moments before he can find his line, and when he does he nearly jams his index finger through his speech, covering the loud noise with a fake cough and hiding red cheeks behind the parchment. 

“Right. Here. Yes.”

One more little cough, one more glance. 

“I’m not sure I’ll ever find a color as vibrant as you, not sure I even want to. But I know that the more I allow myself to search, the more I understand how well Potter knew you when he chose that phrase for your epitaph. I really will love you enough for a thousand lifetimes, Granger, until the day I die. And after that? Well, I’ll do my best to find you and give you a thousand more. But when I think back on it, those thousand lives are actually a gift, a promise only you could keep. They’re a thousand new moments, a thousand second chances, a thousand possibilities that you gave to the people who couldn’t even see one. 

“You saved me every day you were with me, Granger, and you’re saving me even now. In the way you open me up, the way you make me pause, the way you’ve given me people to get me through this. I don’t know that I’ll ever really be able to thank you for finding so much in me, but I promise I’ll think of a way. For now, though, I have one thing to give you.”

He kneels beside her stone, fingers traveling over her name, before lifting his wand to the parchment. There’s nothing at first, a bit of blue light and a long pause, until the parchment breaks apart, fragments into little pieces like grains of sands, sparkling as they scatter in the wind. 

“It was quite hard, creating a spell to send things through the veil. But I promise, love, next year I’ll do even better.”

He pauses a moment to press a kiss to the stone, reveling in its sunned warmth and the stillness that no longer aches.

**Author's Note:**

> The first year's cemetery scene is inspired by Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (I am still not over Maes Hughes' death) I HIGHLY recommend it


End file.
